Goldie: All Things Remembered

Goldie takes readers on a whirlwind trip through time in his new book ‘All Things Remembered’.

So much of Goldie’s new book is centred on the concept of artistry. Told as a series of weaving anecdotes, Goldie (born Clifford J. Price) recounts the peaks and troughs of a career spanning over 30 years.

“So why ‘All Things Remembered’? Because all these memories get put away into the deep , deep storage areas of the brain. They’re not corrupt files; they’re in there somewhere, we just don’t access them. Until something childlike or traumatic happens, or we’re brought together by loss, or laughter, or music – and that brings them all flooding back.”

Goldie’s memoir is narrated across 52 chapters – one for each year of his life. With the help of Ben Thompson, Goldie has recreated his life story – outside of the conventional linear timeline (childhood > adolescence > fame etc). If you’ve ever watched a Goldie interview, you’ll be familiar with his mannerisms and cadence – the triumph of this book is reading it with Goldie’s voice in your head. When he says he has 11 other people in his mind, you believe it. You can almost hear them.

The stories leave nothing untouched, and it’s his willingness to confront the trauma of his formative years that partly makes it such a compelling story. Goldie’s years in the care system might be common knowledge, but the poignant verses of poetry he wrote in those years speak of so much loneliness and hurt. His coping mechanisms, formed when he was just a child himself – when being mixed race was far from the norm we take for granted now – say a lot about the innate resilience of humanity.

“So I decided to try and help by getting her out of the pond and giving her a little squeeze. Basically, my good intentions came to nothing, as I ended up squeezing the internals out of this fucking fish that was already on it’s way out.”

‘All Things Remembered’ is more than melancholy anecdotes of childhood trauma. It’s hugely funny – or deeply disturbing – depending on how dark you like your comedy. Totally upfront, and packed with more than a few big names, it shows just how impossible it is to separate the man from the music, from the art, from the rebellion. Endlessly entwined, completely uncensored it’s the story of one of the U.K.’s most enduring subcultures told by one of it’s bedrock figures.

Get tickets for the U.K. leg of Goldie’s ‘Journey Man’ Tour with the Heritage Orchestra here.